Herman Melville

Herman Melville was an American novelist, essayist and poet. During his lifetime, his early novels were popular, but his popularity declined later in his life. By the time of his death he had nearly been forgotten, but his masterpiece, Moby-Dick—which was largely considered a failure during his lifetime, and responsible for Melville’s drop in popularity at the time—was “rediscovered” in the 20th century as a literary masterpiece.